Marriage in the Dock—The Supreme Court Considers Same-Sex Marriage

Greg:

I read what you wrote and gave a considered reply, and ended with stating we may both be missing something. I thought I sounded pretty reasonable …

A temptation to have a lustful homosexual thought is not sin if it is not given in to and if it is replaced with righteous thoughts.

I think we have different definitions of sin. Yours restricts it to acts. Mine encompasses both thoughts and acts.

No, Tyler, the very statement you quoted, when placed of the context of my entire paragraph, shows that I do NOT restrict sin to acts, but that I DO also include thoughts. I explicitly said in my post, “A lustful homosexual thought is sin…” Let me say it again: Lustful thoughts are sin, whether heterosexual or homosexual. Temptations to lustful thoughts are NOT sin, whether heterosexual or homosexual. I’m sorry, but to me this is really basic. Of course sin can be committed in both thought and deed, but temptation is not sin.

Greg:

Wasn’t trying to misrepresent you, but I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about. Maybe we have a different definition of “temptation.” Let’s just call it a day!

[DrJamesAch]

On the question of where does it stop…..

“Kissing cousins” will be able to argue for their own class. If SCOTUS or the Legislatures permit the gay community to create it’s own protected class, that opens up an entire realm of possible classes including kissing cousins:

*Parent marrying their daughter or son. I mean after all, if “love” is the barometer by which a relationship is judged, and if a parent truly “eros” his/her daughter/son, what’s to stop the government from legitimizing a marriage between them?

*Muslims are permitted more than one wife. The doors will be open for them to argue for it to be recognized in America, and then if Muslims can do it, Mormons will cry “unfair”.

*Bestiality . What about those are truly love their animals? Some are already getting tax breaks by claiming animals as a dependent. Next step will LITERALLY be steers and queers.

I am curious though how a talking parakeet would hold up under interrogation about her human spouse, or would it be smart enough to exercise marital privilege. Furthermore, if they get divorced, does the parakeet get half?

Tyler,

When the random sinful thought enters your mind, is not necessarily sin. When we deal on it, it is lust and sin. I think that is what Greg is trying to say. Does that make sense?

[Sean Fericks]

[DrJamesAch]

On the question of where does it stop…..

“Kissing cousins” will be able to argue for their own class. If SCOTUS or the Legislatures permit the gay community to create it’s own protected class, that opens up an entire realm of possible classes including kissing cousins:

*Parent marrying their daughter or son. I mean after all, if “love” is the barometer by which a relationship is judged, and if a parent truly “eros” his/her daughter/son, what’s to stop the government from legitimizing a marriage between them?

*Muslims are permitted more than one wife. The doors will be open for them to argue for it to be recognized in America, and then if Muslims can do it, Mormons will cry “unfair”.

*Bestiality . What about those are truly love their animals? Some are already getting tax breaks by claiming animals as a dependent. Next step will LITERALLY be steers and queers.

I am curious though how a talking parakeet would hold up under interrogation about her human spouse, or would it be smart enough to exercise marital privilege. Furthermore, if they get divorced, does the parakeet get half?

Amusing. But seriously, I think you are missing my point. I do not advocate a change in the definition for marriage. I am concerned that since government has usurped the authority to arbitrate marriage, it is slowly degrading one of the most fundamental relationships of mankind. Many of you want to use secular government to defend marriage. How have they done so far? I think a better solution is for government to get out of the marriage business entirely.

Sorry, Sean if you thought that was directed at you, it wasn’t. I just happened to see a few comments that asked that question “where does it end” and had no particular rebuttal in mind to anyone in particular. (Pardon the particulars.)

I agree with virtually everything you just said. I personally do not agree with the marriage license ( a debate for another day). Thus, I am on board with government butting out of marriage.

The point I made about my little silly analogies was in the governments application of the Equal Protection Clause.

Long ago the Supreme Court opined that the burden of proving an equal rights violation was on the plaintiff to prove they are part of a protected class. But it is the legislative branch that has the duty of identifying classes, not SCOTUS (judicial). SCOTUS has no right to even grant the writ of certiorari to hear the case because homosexuals have never been a protected class under the federal constitution. It is one thing to recognize a class, but quite another to create one, and SCOTUS has a long track-record of legislating new laws.

When Congress created classes it did so based on who the person was, not the choices they made. Women, blacks, Indians, were protected classes because that’s the way they were born. Gays are not born that way. It is a lifestyle choice. Religion was somewhat the exception (although some were born into a religion) because our rights were seen as endowed to us from our Creator. [Homosexuality as a liberty was not one of those endowments.] Once that foundation became eroded, it created the opportunity for legislation based on social evolution instead of an absolute moral standard.

So “where does it stop”? It doesn’t. Without an absolute moral standard governing the legislative decision making, marriage of parakeets and humans is inevitable.

Just to prove that there is a different agenda as to why the government supports gay marriage so much (i.e. a clandestine way to silence Christians), I challenge all of the representatives and senators to all lock lips and hips with a member of the same sex for 30 seconds live on CNN and see how much they really support rubbing beards together.

Just one small example of how this discriminates against heterosexuals. On September 26, 1999, Jesse Dirkhising, a 13 year old boy, was raped and murder by 2 homosexuals, Joshua Brown and Davis Carpenter. Jesse was raped repeatedly over a period of several hours while bound with duct tape, and raped with foreign objects. And of course, it was not considered a “hate crime” because Jesse was straight. Had he been gay the perpetrators would have been charged with a hate crime. Six of this country’s most popular serial killers were homosexuals (which included John Wayne Gayce who raped and murdered 33 boys in Chicago).

If a heterosexual kills a homosexual, he/she can have the aggravated charge of “hate crime” added. If a homosexual commits a crime against a heterosexual, it’s not a hate crime because heterosexuals are not technically considered a protected class.

To endure persecution that, as Americans, have not seen before? This case will stretch far beyond just same sex marriage. This case has the reach to put discrimination of homosexuals on par with discrimination based on race in this country. What does that mean for institutions that currently pledge things, like no racism, in their policies for accreditation purposes? Not trying to be defeatist, but, in the not so distant future, I don’t see how current Christian universities that are accredited or are applying for accreditation will be able to maintain/achieve that status unless they sign off on a “no discrimination on sexual orientation” clause.

It also has the potential -and likely inevitable effect-of being applied like affirmative action, where businesses or even charitable organizations MUST hire a gay person because they are gay regardless of whether they qualify for the job or not.

I think we are coming a bit unhinged with our apocalyptic visions of the future here. Lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh my!

[Sean Fericks]

I think we are coming a bit unhinged with our apocalyptic visions of the future here. Lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh my!

Here’s a list of events that have already occurred as a result of the gay rights explosion.What Will Be Illegal When Homosexuality Is Legal, David Cloud . So some of the lions and tigers and bears are already putting pot holes in the Yellow Brick Road.

Oh, no … !

I started to read down through Mr. Cloud’s article. Sorry, but I don’t see the persecution. Who preaches about homosexuality at a funeral anyway?[QUOTE=David Cloud] After he preached against homosexuality at a fellow officer’s funeral in September 2006, Sgt. Eric Holyfield of the Los Angeles Police Department was removed from his position in community relations, moved back to patrol duty, and passed over for promotions and pay raises (“Police Office Sues LAPD and Los Angeles, Alleging Religious Discrimination,” Los Angeles Times, July 2, 2008). In his euology, Holyfield, who is also a pastor, quoted Bible verses proving that homosexuality is an abomination before God and said that one must repent or be condemned to hell. Holyfield’s commanding officer, Charlie Beck, who was present at the funeral, filed a formal complaint against him.[/QUOTE] I would have fired this guy myself. Maybe I don’t know the entire story, but there is a time and a place for everything. Looks like most of these guys were either Canadian or looking for a fuss.

When I posted Cloud’s article, I didn’t say he had A story on there, I said he had a LIST. There’s probably about 40-50 different repercussions listed that involved homosexuality.

I appreciate you took the liberty to post one of the examples, one that I would be suspect of as well at a funeral, but I’ll do the same with a few that you might have missed that are not Canadians, and sticking to their guns about their beliefs doesn’t mean they intentionally picked a fight:

*In June 2008 Stephen Boisson, an evangelical youth pastor, was banned from expressing opposition to homosexuality in any public forum and ordered to pay $7,000

*In May 2008, Crystal Dixon was fired as associate vice president of human resources at the University of Toledo after she wrote an editorial to the Toledo Free Press expressing her views on homosexuality.

*In August 2009, Peter Vadala was fired by the Brookstone Corporation for telling a lesbian co-worker that his Christian faith did not accept same-sex marriage. Two days after she contacted the Human Resources department, his job was terminated (“Massachusetts man Fired from Corporation over Christian Belief in Traditional Marriage,” MassResistance.org, Oct. 30, 2009)

*In April 2010 Ken Howell was fired as adjunct professor by the University of Illinois for telling his Catholicism class that he agrees with the Catholic Church’s teaching on homosexualit

*In July 2008 Marcia Walden was fired from her counseling job with Computer Sciences Corporation after she referred a homosexual patient to another counselor for same-sex relationship advice

*In 2010, Jennifer Keeton was told by Augusta State University in Georgia that she would have to change her Christian beliefs or be expelled from the school’s graduate counseling program…..Further, she has expressed her view that homosexuality is a lifestyle, not a state of being.

*On July 26, 2010, a federal judge ruled that Eastern Michigan University was within its rights to dismiss a graduate student, Julea Ward, from its counseling program “because she chose not to counsel a homosexual patient”

*In 2001 a Christian gynecologist at the North Coast Women’s Care Medical Group in Vista, California, was sued by a lesbian for refusing to provide in vitro fertilization treatment due to his religious convictions.

*In 2007, after a Methodist organization in New Jersey refused to rent its facility to a lesbian couple for their civil union ceremony, a complaint was filed with the state Division of Civil Rights. It ruled against the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association

*In April 2008 the New Mexico Human Rights Commission fined a Christian photography studio $6,600 for discriminating against homosexuals.

*When the Wildflower Inn in Lyndonville, Vermont, refused to host a wedding reception for a lesbian couple in 2011 because of religious convictions against homosexual “marriage,” it was sued by the couple.

[Sean Fericks]

Tyler, I think we pretty much agree that the society we ultimately desire will not be realized until the return of the King. Maranatha!

Alex, from my recollection of the OT, Sabbath was taught as a broad social policy, and very dogmatically. In fact, the Sabbath principle preceded marriage. Also, the Sabbath is a much clearer doctrine than “one man + one woman for life = marriage” (polygamy?). I think that, in the end, your position leads to simple democracy.

Aside from God RESTING on the seventh day after creation, can you show where the Sabbath was actually a law and ENFORCED before Exodus? Perhaps I have missed that in all the years I’ve read the Bible, but I can’t remember seeing the Sabbath ever practiced and enforced before Exodus, nor do I remember reading anywhere in the book of Job that he and his family observed it.

Furthermore, God made man on the sixth day, and rested on the 7th. There is no indication that Adam and Eve were not made on the same day followed by God’s resting on the 7th day. (Gen 1:27-31)

Therefore I would beg to differ that the Sabbath was “taught as a broad social policy” prior to the Genesis definition of marriage since it is clear that man was created and marriage defined before even the principle that the Sabbath is based on (God resting on the 7th day).

And “one man + one woman” is only unclear if you add to it and attempt to define it any other way than the plain meaning it is given, much like the plain meaning of the Sabbath.

God defined marriage as a help meet for the man. (Gen 2:18,24) and that help meet was not a big burly man that could help plow the fields, it was a woman. God created a multitude of different beasts, but when it came to humans, he began with one man and one woman. God further gave reason that he created the woman for the man because “it is not good that man should be alone”. So the help meet was a personal companion, and it was a woman. A man doesn’t get married to another man and acquire an extra rib, nor does a woman marry a woman and one of them loses a rib.

In Genesis 1, when the Bible says male and female created he them, followed by be fruitful and multiply, he certainly wasn’t referring to two males and two females since they don’t have the capacity to multiply.

The partners in a marriage are referred to as a husband, man, and a wife, a female. Matthew 19:4-5.

It doesn’t get much clearer than that, and any argument to the contrary would require you to find an example in the Bible where “wife” refers to any other gender than woman, or husband refers to any other gender than male, and where there is any marriage in the Bible at all of a same-sex couple. Absent any example of such, and the clear definition of marriage in the first and second chapters of the Bible, I’d say that considering there’s much more of a debate in Christendom over the Sabbath (what day was it originally on, Saturday or Sonday, whether it should still be observed, if so on what day, what did the Sabbath mean for Israel, or for Gentiles now, is the millennium the day of rest, etc..) then there is over the definition of marriage, that concluding that there the doctrine of the Sabbath is clearer than “one man + one woman” is erroneous. Even if you attempted to use polygamy as an argument, polygamy was still between a man and a woman, and whatever abuses occurred in the OT or were even permitted during certain dispensations and tolerated in others in spite of themselves (Solomon), the NT has certainly reaffirmed God’s original purpose and definition of marriage, and specifically condemned relations between same sexes.

Paul calls sex outside of marriage fornication, and sex with another person outside of the marriage by one who is married adultery, but he nor any other apostle ever called those acts unnatural (Romans 1:26-27). And, there are entirely different proscriptions and punishments for each offense. Sex between unmarried couples is fornication. Sex committed by a married person to someone other than the spouse is adultery. Sex with a member of the same sex is unnatural. It doesn’t get any clearer than that.

Sean, In Romans 13 Paul explains that the government bears the sword for the purpose of rewarding good and punishing evil. I’m curious how your view of government non-intervention is consistent with the biblical role of government? It seems that for any government to reward good it must know what is good, and to punish evil it must know what is evil. How will our government know good from evil if believers do not speak truth about these issues to our elected representatives?